Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

After receiving the lecture at the Department of Anthropology, we were guided through the Museum of Anthropology, founded in 1949, which houses over 38 000 ethnographic objects. Of particular interest to our students is that MOA is a world leader in collecting Aboriginal artefacts and there are approximately 6,000 objects from B.C's First Nations in MOA's collections, from totem poles, to canoes and carved boxes, bowls, and feast dishes. Furthermore the museum has an innovative storing methods and interactive software and hardware allowing one to explore the collections from the touch-screen computer or from the Internet. Visiting the MOA was an excellent opportunity for us to see how they run the museum to inspire curiosity, understanding and respect of other world cultures, while promoting innovation and inclusiveness. With the historical and anthropological background it was also a chance for our troupe to explore and share the similarities and differences between their Indigenous cultures.

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Filmed by C. Phiv, edited by Nick Coulson, subtitled by Adrienne Chu

Photos: Shuching Hsueh

University of British Columbia, Department of Anthropology, Vancouver

A long-serving professor of Anthropology, Dr Bruce Miller, has huge experience in World Aboriginal affairs. He first gave a presentation on the history and development of First Nation struggle in Canada, before extending to examples of Indigenous struggles elsewhere in the world including Brazil, the US and Papua New Guinea. After leading into discussion he gave advice on the repertoire of tools available for advancing Indigenous empowerment. He emphasized the importance of manipulating the laws available to them, but also the adoption of various tactics to advance the cause, such as the 'politics of embarrassment'. For Bruce Miller, most important of all was that regardless of how much resources they had was to begin putting ideas into practice immediately, taking action now to create the future for themselves and their people.

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"For me, the UBC Department of Anthropology was the most exciting part of the trip. In a very short time, Dr. Bruce Miller gave us an understanding of the history of the First Nations struggle in Canada, and used his experience and observations to evoke discussion of certain focal points with us students. He listened to our questions and his reply was always a message of encouragement. For example, he urged us to use movement tactics such as the ‘politics of embarrassment’ to force the governments into making decisions rather than just suffering injustices and then pleading with the government that they empower the Indigenous people. What he was telling us was that power doesn’t come without a struggle. You must be ready and willing to take action.

Photo:Shuching Hsueh

Klahowya Village, Stanley Park, Vancouver City

After spending the morning sightseeing around Vancouver City, at the Queen Elizabeth Park, Chinatown and the pinnacle of western welfare states in action at less well-to-do end of East Hastings, we then moved on to the first major cultural exchange in our trip. Stanley Park covers 400 hectares of evergreen land close to downtown Vancouver. During the summer months from May to September the Vancouver Park Board has transformed a part of Stanley Park into an Aboriginal summer village, the Klahowya Village Park, a vibrant cultural experience of song, dance, art and cuisine. They offer storytelling, spirit catching train rides, two daily dance performances, Aboriginal cuisine and daily cultural tours including specific ‘Nations days’. There are also crafts, with artisans working on-site doing woodcarving and weaving, which you can have a go at making yourself or buy from their store. This setup was particularly relevant to the Taiwanese students exploring cultural enterprise as a way of reaching financial autonomy, a necessary condition of long-term political autonomy. We hoped to take this opportunity to understand how Klahowya village uses ecological tourism and cultural enterprise to initiate cultural revival and also provide jobs for local aborigines, in a way that is respectful to their traditions and people.

"We began our journey at Klahowya Village, Stanley Park, where we witnessed the collaboration between the First Nations and the government on a cultural enterprise project of sustainable management and promotion. From May to September every year, Klahowya Village becomes a small tribe with the aims of cultural preservation and promotion. We were lucky to experience one of their exorcism ceremonies, a village train ride and to take part in a traditional dance dialogue. The exorcism ceremony, in which ash and leaves are waved over the body, was very similar to that of the Amis’ culture."
Ibu Isliduan (Department of Indigenous Languages and Communication, National Dong Hwa University, Bunon Nation)

"Not being able to say “No” to others is a weakness. We compromise easily, thus our life, studies and even culture are taken advantage of by others. In Klahowya Village, after an elder shared his music and dance, one journalist came to ask him to do it again. He refused and said, “Culture is not a tool of marketing nor consumption, is our dignity.”"
Takun Neka (Department of Public Affairs, Ming Chuan University, Atayal Nation)

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Video filmed by Cerise Phiv and Diane Chen, edited by Cerise Phiv and Nick Coulson, subtitled by Yen-ching Chu

Photo courtesy of Laurent Vu-The

Change is in the Air, Twenty Golden Years

From the 1990s, the concept of multiculturalism gradually took shape, as Taiwan amended its constitution and underwent social changes. 1996 saw the establishment of the Council of Indigenous Peoples, in accordance with the constitution, and with an integrated administrative body, which led progressively to the formation of a legal and political framework for indigenous peoples.

To those of us in our fifties and sixties, maintaining our indigenous cultural practices was an important responsibility, as we had experienced tribal life, had attended traditional rituals and could still talk to the elder generation in our native tongues. I absorbed myself in aboriginal literature, as well as investigating and translating traditional indigenous rites, taking advantage of my own reserves of knowledge on traditional practices, in the hope of preserving it for the indigenous peoples to come in the next 50 years. It was my fervent wish that aboriginal children 50 years from now would be different from my generation, struggling to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors due to a lack of information about their past.

Lighting the Kindling to Weld a New Perspective on the World

The organization of the 'Taiwan Indigenous Students Cultural Exchange Program' was an experimental attempt to encourage younger people to better themselves. The program was aimed essentially at broadening the horizons of young aboriginal people, meeting with people with a similar historical experience to us, and allowing for comparison of policy and strategies that perhaps Taiwan can learn from, as well as sharing the unique innovations that we have to offer the world. The program was planned over the course of the last few years in cooperation with other bodies, but the result was not quite what aboriginal youths had hoped for, therefore, this year the program was changed substantially, the students themselves put forth a proposal, and designed their own agenda for the visit, with groups formed from different schools.

This was a breakthrough, on the one hand it increased the participation of the young people in the program, and on the other it made them responsible for their own choices. The advocacy and responsibility of participants had to be balanced somewhat, as young people tend to plan that which they are used to, so we couldn't expect them to come back with a broader global perspective in that instance.

Ploughing Deeply, to Cultivate Cultural Soil

A lot of problems are often not simply indigenous problems. Indigenous industry is an example of this; it doesn't function in and of itself, but rather follows mainstream society. It is perhaps possible to think outside the box on this issue, and hand over responsibility for conservation and forestry over to indigenous peoples. If there was a budgetary consideration to train indigenous peoples to change the focus of their industries to conservation and forestry, restoring stability to the environment, then this would be, at least from the aboriginal point of view, a great step forward.

If these principles were to be clearly adhered to, indigenous industry, in terms of ecology, culture and existentialist concerns, would be greatly benefitted. We have to find certain industries which would engage in dialogue with contemporary society and not just doggedly attempt to keep up with mainstream culture. I believe this is the right path.

By Ta-Chuan Sun, edited by Raining Be, translated from the Chinese by Conor Stuart
Photo by Yuanxi Chuang

Video filmed by Yuanxi Chuang, edited by Nicholas Coulson, subtitled by Conor Stuart

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